


And the Roots Grew

by Galadriel



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loss, Memories, Religion, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Self-Reflection, Yuletide 2016, Yuletide Assignment, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/pseuds/Galadriel
Summary: In the wake of the massacre in Old Town, Alvis considers what service he can possibly offer to his friends.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Framlingem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Framlingem! I hope this story at least resembles something you were hoping for. I love all the Killjoys characters just as much as you do, and I was really intrigued by your questions about Alvis! I wish I had had enough time to give you a far fuller treatment, but perhaps that's something I can explore at better length in the future. Thank you for the wonderful prompt, and the best of the season to you and yours!

There's been a seismic shift. Alvis can feel it, deep in his bones. It isn't just what's happening on Westerley, although the chaos the Company has caused, the sheer number of people -- good, hardworking people -- it has utterly destroyed takes Alvis' breath away. It is all he can do to speak the words, recite the prayers, offer blood and bone and scars and pain in some small thimble-full to act as balm to those broken believers whose search for salvation has lead them to Leith, where they have found only old monks and older ways.

As much as he would bend or break, he must be root and tree, foundation and promise, old and new growth promising the green of continuing life, of sprouts and leaves and beginnings. He must stand in for the Mother Tree, for unwavering faith and love.

_And the roots grew._

"Uncle? Please, Uncle. Help me. Help _us_." 

Pulled from his musings, Alvis turns back to the latest group of refugees, newly arrived. Their faces tell the same story that is written on each sanctuary-seeker who has come before: fear and hurt, loss and pain. He administers to them all: prayers for the hopeful, scars for the fearful, medicine and bandages for those who have bloodied more than their faith. This group will need all and more. By Alvis' reckoning, the young girl, supported on one side by her father, has broken her leg in several places. The little family unit looks lean and bedraggled, probably still too afraid to trust their food isn't poisoned. 

Alvis beckons to his brothers. They will need to set the bone carefully, then coax parent and child to eat. 

It is going to be another long night of service, and if he's lucky, maybe a little salvation.

 

He knows he should be surprised when he retires to his room only to find Dutch in his bed. Perhaps he's too weary to feel it; perhaps he's long since learned not to be surprised at what she is capable of, at how far she has wormed herself under his skin. She smiles at him as he undresses, as he slips under the sheets and settles beside her, but he can see the tightness around her eyes, the set of her mouth. Her story, not one word spoken, written across her face for Alvis to read. 

Later, they will talk about what has happened. Later, they will speak of what's to come. But Dutch doesn't have to say a word for Alvis to understand. Something has happened with John. Only John causes frown lines that cut that deep into Dutch's features. Only John makes her forehead wrinkle and refuse to smooth out, even after the tracing of fingers and lips. 

Only John is planted that deeply in Dutch's soul.

Only John.

_The seeds travelled from a home we've forgotten, finding soil on Qresh._

The Scarbacks aren't so tucked away that Alvis doesn't hear what's happening, of course. The death of a Qreshi, no matter how fallen from grace, reaches the ears of everyone in the Quad. And of course, Pawter's sudden rise from disgraced failure to matriarch of Land Simms added an extra spin to the salaciousness of the news. His stomach had dropped when he heard, a deep cut administered by the universe, a scar he could not say he had any intention of accepting with grace.

He holds Dutch gently as she tells him about Delle Seyah; about John's disappearance; about the Level 5 warrant she fought to take to mark Johnny as her target; about how Turin, in no small part, made sure it landed in her hands. How Turin is largely the reason it isn't a Black warrant, and how it has bought her a measure of time, even if those grains are rapidly slipping away.

She is the strongest person Alvis knows. Her spine is steel, her will iron. But he also knows what happens in storms to the most rigid of trees. Without John, Dutch is brittle. Without John, Dutch will break as she's battered by the changing winds.

Alvis promises to use his network to search for news of Johnny. There are only so many places a seedling can stay buried; only so many places to go to ground and burrow deep.

_And the roots grew._

When they finally drift off to sleep, Alvis dreams. He dreams of a time before D'avin, before Khlyen and Red 17. It is a tangle of branches and brambles, a maze of old and new growth, twined together, inseparable and impenetrable. 

Even now, Alvis is only a half-step away from his life as a tunnel rat. Even now, as a Scarback who reveres the Mother Tree, the notion of wide open spaces, of thick forests and the rich, full scent of loam and leaves makes him wonder if he can move past it, if he can exist in the wider world without the comfort of confinement and secrecy. There is a solace in his scars, in his rebellion against the Company, but he wonders what would become of him if those trapping were pruned away. What would he be if he was stripped down and left bare under the light of the moon?

He envies Pree, just a little. The man is mercurial, forever changing with the breeze, a man with a thousand lifetimes lurking just under his skin. He would know how to navigate the forest of Alvis' mind. He would know how to help Dutch now, how to cut a path straight from her to Johnny.

_From one world to two moons, one mother tree to unite us all._

Once, when Alvis was still just a rat, when he made a little bit of joy -- off the books, just a small jingle in his pockets, enough for a sip of drink or mouthful of bread -- by running messages and errands, Pree pulled him out from beneath The Royale's floorboards and took him past the drunkards, past the sexers, up onto the roof. He settled them both up there, Pree relaxing in a chair, Alvis on an overturned carton, and over the course of an hour, shared the last third of a bottle with Alvis. 

It was so quiet, so still, that voices from the streets below were the only sounds that interrupted the rise and fall of Alvis' breathing. He wondered why Pree would bring him up there, a dirty little tunnel rat not worth the handful of joy stuffed deep in his pockets, but he could not bring himself to break the silence to ask. 

The world seemed to spool out as they sat there, the lights of Old Town giving way to the rising of the moons. 

Full and round, they hung above Pree and Alvis, seemingly close enough to touch. Alvis felt as if he were shrinking, withering away into nothing in the face of the size of the Quad, of the planets and stars beyond the ground under their feet. His breath caught, a little hiccup of air and spit.

He heard a quiet rustle, the sound tugging his gaze away from the sky above. Pree was watching him, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Alvis shifted under the scrutiny, suddenly overly aware of his own body, of the way he'd abandoned himself to the sight of two full moons illuminating all of Westerley.

Pree sat up. "There's so much more in the Quad than just you and me." Then he nodded, as if he had imparted something profound and deep, and stood up, starting back down to the bar. "Stay or go, just bring the bottle with you when you come back in." 

Alvis stayed up there a couple hours more, marvelling at the path of the moons across the sky. He suddenly felt connected to something greater than himself, as if it wasn't quite so bad to be a small speck in a universe populated by speck after speck, all insignificant, all individual, all invested in their own lives.

_And when we rise her branches hold us,_

On waking, Alvis wonders where D'avin and Pree are. It seems strange for Dutch to be searching for John alone, but a brief question and answer reveals the classic "divide and conquer" mindset. They can cover more space separately; D'avin is chasing down all their old childhood haunts, while Dutch strikes out into new places and spaces that might best shelter someone wishing to disappear. They communicate at least once a day, and from what Alvis overhears, they are tense, perfunctory messages, the stress wearing on each of them, exhausting both friend and brother rapidly.

Even so, Dutch could use a travelling companion, and there is no one better for her right now than Pree. He will send word to The Royale this morning, ask Pree for this one favour, ask him to be the sheltering branches Dutch would never ask for or acknowledge as a need.

 

It is two full days before word trickles back to Alvis from his followers: only the faintest of hints, but a lead all the same. A woman and a man, the latter not quite matching John's description, asking questions at The Factory, trading favours for Mother knows what. The woman is a hack-mod, that much is certain, as her mod is of the type that is nearly impossible to tuck away neatly. What they are up to, however, is beyond the knowledge of Alvis' rodents.

Two days of waiting has been more than enough for Dutch, as she's become as restless as a miner in a cave-in. As much as she has tried to help with the slow trickle of penitents and asylum seekers, her talents do not lean towards the gentler pasttimes.

Instead, she has made great use of the training grounds inside the monastery and the ranges outside. Alvis is amazed that she has remained on Leith with him for this long, but her impatience is twined together with a hopelessness that seems to leave her with no sense of what her next move should be. 

"When I _find_ him, I'm going to _kill_ him." The side of Dutch's foot lands soundly against the dummy hanging from a hook in the ceiling. A little cloud of dust rises from the impact, and Alvis glances down, noting the small leak of stuffing from the seam split under Dutch's attentions. He smiles faintly, briefly considering -- and discarding -- a little ribbing about the Level Five that gives her that right over Johnny.

He clears his throat, and waits for her to finish before he speaks. "The Factory."

"What?" With her hands still wrapped, her stance elastic and moving, Dutch's impatience comes through as nervous energy. 

"That's your lead. The Factory. Someone sounding strikingly like John has been seen there, making himself known with inconvenient inquiries."

Dutch blinks, exhaustion still lurking in the corners of her eyes, which blaze with a sudden fire that Alvis hadn't seen since before Khlyen and the Mother Tree. "Come on, then." She strides across the floor, unwrapping her hands as she moves. "Tell me everything. I need to load up Lucy before I leave."

_And when we tire her trunk shelters us,_

Dutch is back on board Lucy almost before Alvis can finish imparting all he has learned. She is perfunctory, but not ungrateful, and Alvis silently wishes for her and John to find each other swiftly. If she is the old growth trunk, John is the sapling that bends with the breeze. They have grown and twined together for so long that without the sapling's support, at the first true storm, the rigid trunk will split and bleed.

But perhaps that twinning is already damaged. Perhaps Pawter's death has broken Johnny. If John was here right now, if Alvis thought it would help, or if John would even accept, he would offer his pain up to Johnny. If John had chosen another route, Alvis could see him as a Scarback, ready to take on the hurt of others, to be Uncle to their childlike fears.

He remembers the first time he saw John and Dutch together, not long after John had first donned the RAC's uniform. There was a newness to their partnership that could not be denied, the squeaky-cleanness of an untested coupling, but even then he could see the potential between them. John was full of energy, cockiness tempered by the very real desire to impress and please Dutch, while Dutch was already slowly unknotting, as if she was surprised to find there actually were people one might trust if one was so inclined to consider such a thing.

Almost as wary as Dutch, still, Alvis liked Johnny almost right away. He was interested in the Scarbacks, in a way few people were unless they were already of the faith. He was quick with a smile and a laugh, and seemed to prefer to see the better side of people, as if he hadn't yet had Westerley seep into his bones, and on more than one occasion, he bought Alvis a drink and talked to him about anything, everything, and nothing at all.

Not once had Johnny Jaqobis asked Alvis for a prayer or a blessing. Not once had he spoken to him in tones of hushed reverence. Perhaps he had taken his cue from Dutch, or perhaps it was simply the way he was rooted and grown. John was a friend, and that was what mattered.

_And when we die her roots will carry us home._

If Alvis was to sit down and count it out, he supposes it would have been a good six months or more before Johnny lost the edge to his eagerness around Dutch, even as she loosened and lowered her guard. He remembers seeing them newly back from a warrant, John's first Level Three, stopping in at the Royale for a couple drinks in celebration. All smiles, John was still very calm, and he and Dutch seemed happy to simply drink and talk quietly for a time.

Alvis had just come downstairs, having visited one of the sexers at his request, when a raggedly-dressed young man, high on bliss, stumbled into the Royale armed with a length of rebar, waving it around willy nilly as he approached the bar, shouting about Company money and miner's rights.

Pree, amusement on his face, reached for the gun all the regulars knew was concealed under the counter, but before he could slide it out and into sight, Dutch and Johnny were moving. Alvis is certain they never spoke a word to each other, never so much as glanced at the other, but they moved in tandem, flanking the man, John distracting him with a quick smile and a terrible joke while Dutch struck, reaching for the rebar, pulling it out of his hands, and twisting his arm behind his back, disabling him in one smooth move. A moment later, John swooped in to help, restraining both wrists, hauling the man back up, and steering him towards the door.

They were gone in a heartbeat, Dutch, John and the man, and after a beat of silence, the Royale's clientele began chattering again as if nothing had happened.

It was then that Alvis knew it: Dutch and Johnny fit together perfectly, a chance partnership bearing the sweetest of fruits.

If only those fruits had not been blighted. If only the Company, Khlyen, and Pawter's death hadn't rotted away root and tree.

If only.

If only John had asked Alvis for his pain, Alvis would have bled. If only Dutch had asked for his prayers, Alvis would have spoken. If only. If only. If only.

But if Alvis cannot use the tools of his faith, if he cannot give Dutch nor John absolution or validation, then he will simply have to discard what he knows in favour of what he can feel.

If John's roots have rotted away, if Dutch's trunk has become brittle, if they can no longer prop one another up, then Alvis will do it. He can be the roots, the branches, the leaves. He can be the sapling that twines around the both of them, bringing them both together, holding them up until they can once again hold each other up. He can be like the Mother, and offer life instead of pain.

If he hurries, Alvis can catch Dutch and Lucy before they're out of range. All he needs are a few small things from his room, and then he can rendezvous with Dutch, with Pree, with D'avin, and in time, with Johnny. 

He'll find a way to make it right. For all of them.

_Praise the trees._


End file.
